What's better then a really fun Easter party? How about a really fun Easter party with violin Easter games and music. This mother and teacher says yes please!

So.....confession time; my kids have never had a friend birthday party, the Elf doesn't sit on our shelf, and magical leprechauns never leave foot prints and gold sparkles leading to a pot of chocolate gold at our house. I really try hard to avoid those perfect looking cakes and birthday themed ideas when perusing Pinterest. They just leave me feeling like a pathetic mom. I'm lucky when my kids get 3 square meals, their practicing done, and are dressed in seasonally appropriate clothes.

Every once in a while I get a weird bug in me though and attempt something spectacular for a special event at our house. Most of the time I fail. Almost always I lose my sanity. And every time my husband and kids look at me with pleading eyes and say, "We'd rather have our nice mom then our perfect party complete with crazy-sleep-deprived-stressed-out-mean mom as the centerpiece!"

So when I thought to myself, "I bet there's some fun violin Easter games and music I could pull together quick for a violin Easter party." I had to really make sure my overboard insanity self wasn't the one talking. In fact, I didn't even go on Pinterest to create this party. The last thing I needed was to say, "I could probably do that", and then 6 hours later find myself crying over a '3 dimensional bunny playing a violin cake' that looked more like a martian dripping alien goop.

Good News

Planning this party around Easter and of course my latest obsession 'Music Theory', ended up being a breeze. So, I decided I better share my violin Easter games and music on my blog. Now the rest of you 'party avoiders' like me can suddenly become successful 'party planners'. One of my students even said, "We need to have a party like this every holiday." Needless to say the party was a huge hit! The kids had a blast and I was able to squeeze in some more music theory and violin time without them groaning or complaining....win/win!

Violin Easter Activity 1

Our first activity was a cute little worksheet that you can find right here. Yes! My kind of party! Match the notes to the correct name. This came from one of my favorite music theory printable worksheets sites. If you do a search for Easter on her site, you find a bunch of other fun stuff.

Violin Easter Activity 2

Our second activity was to learn a little Easter song. First we went through all of the parts without our violin and learned the rhythm. I happened to already have some egg shakers on hand from past rhythm activities (everyone was impressed and thought it was all part of the 'Easter' theme). Kids love learning rhythm using other musical instruments. You can find some top notch egg shakers to buy, or you can do what I did and make my own out of cheap plastic Easter eggs and rice. Make sure to tape the eggs shut so you don't have a rice confetti shower during the party. Lummi Sticks work really well for this too.

This Easter song is a quick little ditty I wrote using scale practice and rhythm practice in one. It's in the key of D major so it's great for beginning violinists. P.S. The rhythm "Little bunny hop hop" uses the same rhythm as "Mississippi hot dog" so it's Suzuki friendly and reinforces what the kids are already learning. I wrote words to the rhythm so it's easy to sing and tap out. There are 3 violin parts written, one stays on open D string the whole time so you can have a mix of abilities. I've included a cello part in the score if you want to use this in orchestra.

Click on the links below for the individual parts

Little Bunny Hop Hop Violin 1

Little Bunny Hop Hop Violin 2

Little Bunny Hop Hop Violin 3

Little Bunny Hop Hop Score

Violin Easter Activity 3

** Stick chocolate eggs in Freezer before you begin this activity**

Using a chocolate egg, practice your bow hold. For younger students you can place the egg inside their bow hand (right hand) to help keep a nice round shape. I'm constantly telling my students to pretend there's a ball inside their hand to help open it up. This doesn't work as well for older students unless you have a really big chocolate egg as it will slip through. For older students you can place the bow on the thumb and see how well they can do elevator bows while balancing the egg. You could even do 'egg relays' while balancing it on the thumb!

We also played the violin with the chocolate egg tucked in our left hands like a little nest. It helped the students to have a nice soft rounded hand.

Violin Easter Activity 4

Our next activity was a good ol' fashion Easter egg hunt in the backyard. Inside each plastic egg was a jelly bean and a piece of paper with a note name on it. After all the eggs had been found, they came back in and put their notes (jellybeans) on the staff.

The kids had a really fun time doing this, and it was a cinch to pull together. After they had their notes on the staff, I checked them and quizzed them on what fingers were used to play the notes or what string the notes were on. Then they got to eat their Jelly Beans.

I hope you have as much fun doing some of these violin Easter games and using our Easter music as we did. I envision a really fun orchestra Easter party happening with these activities, or adding a fun Easter game to private violin lessons this week. Please share these EASY but fun music ideas with friends or on social media, so the next time someone wants to do something fun with their violin students, they don't have to split hairs or harm relationships because they are stressed to the max trying to achieve the impossibly perfect Pinterest party.